Obviously, it leaves parents no choice. Canada’s Universal Child Care Plan, which I talked about in my presentation, costs $250 million per year which, in fact, is a reduction of $950 million per year if we compare this plan to the $5 billion initiative over five years for children in our province. It is not an affordable choice or an accessible choice. I know that day care centres in New Brunswick told the federal government that, even if there was the money or the initiative to create day care spaces, they were not interested in creating new spaces, because there is not enough money to recruit trained staff and provide quality service. Not only is it a problem of the ability to pay, but also a problem of accessibility. In our province, only one child out of eight has access to a space in a licensed day care centre that meets minimum quality criteria.
On October 24th, 2006. See this statement in context.